Saran expresses disappointment

Shyam Saran, the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Climate Change, has expressed his disappointment at the progress so far achieved at the Bonn inter-governmental meeting.

Shyam Saran, the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Climate Change, has expressed his disappointment at the progress so far achieved at the Bonn inter-governmental meeting.

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“We still have no clear indication about the emission reduction targets which our developed country parties are ready to commit to,” he said. “There is still no clarity over the scale of financial and technological resources that would be available to developing counties.”

Asked to what extent India would deviate from its energy policies to commit to a new agreement on climate change, Saran said: “Such issues didn’t figure in the Kyoto Protocol principles or the science of climate change.”

India had been growing at 9% per decade over the last decade with only a 4% increase in emissions. It was already spending 2.5% of its GDP on a range of measures to cope with global warming.

Saran expressed surprise that the EU and others were proposing a carbon tax on products from developing economies like cement, aluminium and steel.“Global action on climate cannot be made conditional on the maintenance of industrial competitiveness,” he said.

Asked how the Nano squared with India’s drive to reduce its emissions, he said people had aspirations that couldn’t be denied.

“Can you tell 400 million people to do without electricity because of climate change?” he questioned.

The PM’s National Action Plan was stressing public transport and meeting people’s energy needs through renewable technologies.